the last half of the last year, pupils may largely fit themselves
for college entrance before they take up their normal training
work.

A. H. WATERHOUSE.
Superintendent.

FULLERTON.

The Fullerton public schools have
during the past five years been holding their own as to school
census, but as to average daily attendance, however, a decided growth
has been made. It is to be noted, also, that the most rapid growth
has been made in the high school department, due largely to the fact
that so many of Nance county's boys and girls are taking advantage of
the free high school law.

The school grounds contain one
entire block, and a new $33,000 grade building is now under process
of construction. This building has ten school rooms, a library, an
office, a supply room, and a gymnasium 36x70 feet, at either end of
which are large locker rooms, toilets and baths. Each room will seat
about forty-five pupils, and is lighted from one side only. The
building is provided with the vacuum system of steam heating.

In the fall of 1908 the board of
education added normal training to the course of study, which has
proven very popular with the high school students. In 1909-10 there
were thirty-six who enrolled for this work, of whom twelve were
seniors, every one of whom are now teaching in the rural schools of
Nance county.

But one course besides that of
normal training is offered to high school students, which is
preparatory to the state university. The equipment as to apparatus
and reference books for both these courses is very good, with a
liberal school board which Is determined to make it one of the best
in the state by judiciously adding to it a little more each year.

CURRY W. WATSON,
Superintendent.

GENEVA.

There has been a steady growth in
the Geneva schools each year. The enrollment for the year 1909-10 was
larger than any preceding year, amounting to 586. And the year just
begun promises to bring tip the enrollment close to the 600 mark. In
the past three years there has been added to the teaching corps one
teacher in the grades, two in the high school, a music teacher and
the domestic science teacher.

There has been a marked increase in
the enrollment of the high school since the twelfth grade and normal
training were added. The enrollment for 1909-10 was 156, which is
much larger than ever before.

There are forty-two non-resident
students in attendance this year who have free high school
certificates.

CITY SCHOOLS

669

The buildings and grounds are well
kept and the play grounds have received special attention the past
year, there being placed on the boys' grounds turning poles and a
tennis court, for the girls' swings and sand piles. Sanitary drinking
fountains were placed on the first and second floors last summer and
are proving very satisfactory.

There is a library in the rear of
the assembly room for the students immediate use. They also have
access to the city library, which is directly across the street.

The course of study is much the same
as is given in the high school manual, practically the only
difference being the completion of algebra before taking up
geometry.

Domestic science, domestic art and
manual training are rapidly growing each year, as is shown by the
crowded condition of the classes. This work seems to appeal to the
parents as well as the pupils.

The normal training department has
been very popular since its very beginning. There are thirty-three in
this course this year. A school journal is being published each month
by the students, which takes up the important things that are done in
the school and keeps those posted who never visit the schools.

Athletics look brighter this season
and the boys are beginning their practice for basketball with great
enthusiasm. The girls are greatly interested in their gymnasium
exercises.

The plan for the teachers' meetings
this year is to have the medical inspector give a short talk on the
sanitary conditions of the rooms and information that will be
valuable for the teacher in her work and two teachers visit each
month some good school for two days and give a complete description
of same. These meetings are held once a month.

R. W.
EATON,
Superintendent.

GENOA.

In 1907 Genoa was only an
eleven-graded school with seven teachers, with two in the high
school. In 1910 Genoa had nine teachers, with four in the high
school. We are now a fully accredited twelve-graded school, doing the
normal training work successfully. We now offer four years of Latin,
two of German, one of physics, one of chemistry, two of European
history, one of United States history, seven semesters of mathematics
and seven of English. Our gradates (sic) earn from twenty-four to
thirty-two credit points, upon graduation. The normal training
graduates get a second grade teachers' certificate in addition to
their university credits.

Genoa has now a small floating
indebtedness of less than $1,000 Seven years ago, with two saloons,
she had over $6,000 standing out. She voted out the saloons, added a
new grade and more teachers, bought more supplies and equipment and
made many improvements

670

STATE SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT

on the grounds and buildings. In face of all these added
expenditures she was able to nearly wipe out her indebtedness. This
is another refutation that saloon money is needed to carry on the
public schools.

The present school census numbers
363, enrollment 350 and attendance of 275. Our high school enrolls
nearly 100, with about thirty free high school pupils..

Normal training has proven very
popular. None but the very best students of the junior and senior
class elect to carry it. Over twenty graduates of the normal training
course have been teaching successfully in the county, earning from
$40 to $50 per month. The patrons are very well pleased with this
practical turn in making quick use of an education.

CHAS. M. SUTHERLAND,
Superintendent.

GRAND ISLAND.

Previous to 1882-3 the Grand Island
schools were an aggregation of schools rather than a system. There
wag no organization or course of study. The school population was
1,074, of whom 612 were enrolled during 1882-3, with an average
attendance of 512, with a teaching force of nine. There were
seventy-one pupils enrolled in the high school under one teacher
besides the superintendent, with an average attendance of
thirty-nine.

In the fall of 1882 the schools were
organized and the first course of study formulated and adopted, that
for the high school consisting of an English and a Latin course, and
the first class graduated in June, 1883.

There were at that time an
eight-room building, the Dodge, a small wooden building and two
rented rooms used for school purposes.

The growth of the schools has been
steady and not phenomenal in any way at any time. At present there
are seven buildings, five brick and two frame, including the new high
school, a fine twenty-room building of splendid appointments, built
and equipped in 1906-7, at a cost of $70,000. Five of the buildings
are steam heated and lighted with electricity. All have ample
grounds, three of them standing on full city blocks. The census of
1909-10 showed a school population of 2,655, of whom 2,043 were
enrolled in the schools with an average number belonging of 1,643,
and an average daily attendance of 1,559. The enrollment would have
been much larger but for the fact that there are five parochial and
private schools in the city.

The number of teachers employed
during 1909-10, including the superintendent, was forty-nine, of whom
ten were employed in the high school. The number enrolled in the high
school during 1909-10 was 276. Of this number twenty-five were
enrolled under the free high school law.

The course of study below the high
school is that of the common schools, including in addition music and
two years of German,

CITY SCHOOLS

671

the latter being optional, and covers nine grades. It is the aim
of these schools to give the pupils the broadest opportunities
possible for preparation for life and with that end in view the high
school has six four-year courses of study:' English, German, Latin,
college preparatory, normal and business.

A course in normal training has been
maintained each year since the law providing for that work went into
effect. During the year 1909-10 seven seniors and fifteen juniors
were enrolled in the course. Of the seven seniors who graduated, all,
I think, are doing excellent work in the country schools.

The high school library consists of
1,025 volumes, not including any texts, and contains reference works
for all of the departments.

In connection with the high school
three literary societies, the Abbottonians, the Barrinians, the
Dodonians and a Young Woman's Christian association, have been
maintained much to their benefit and profit.

R. J. BARR,
Superintendent.

GREELEY.

In the fall term of 1907, the
Greeley school consisted of one brick four-room building containing
about ninety pupils, one one-room frame building in which were lodged
about eighty pupils, one poorly equipped room in one of the old store
buildings, in which forty-five pupils took up their daily work. The
superintendent's office was a room in one of the store buildings in
the main part of the town about five blocks from the school. The
total number of pupils in the high school numbered twenty-nine.

During the year this school district
erected a $16,000 building and the next year the pupils were more
conveniently housed. The eleventh grade had been given extra work the
previous year so that in the fall term of 1908 the students were able
to take up a strong twelfth grade course. During this year the school
work was improved until the Greeley school was qualified to be placed
upon the four-year accredited list. A library and physical laboratory
were added and the high school literary society purchased a $375
plane, paying for it during the next two years with money raised by
giving musical enterfainments, school plays and box suppers. Three
teachers were added to the faculty and the school was tentatively
approved as a normal training high school.

The school grounds were improved by
adding trees and planting blue grass se that new the Greeley school
will equal in appearance that of the average high school of the
state. During the school year 1909-10 the average daily attendance of
the high school was sixty, and the entire enrollment of the school
was 300. The non-resident tuition collected amounted to about
$600.

M. W.
RYAN,
Superintendent.

672

STATE SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT

HARTINGTON.

The Hartington schools have just
closed a very satisfactory year's work with an enrollment of 326 and
an average daily attendance of 229, a high school enrollment of
sixty-one, with fourteen nonresidents attending under the free
attendance law. These figures, while they do not reach those of
1908-09, when the enrollment swelled to 366, still show an increase
over all preceding years.

In comparing the enrollment with the
school census of the district, which now reaches 545, it is to be
remembered that the town also supports a parochial school which
enrolled 204 pupils during the past year.

The graduating class of 1910
consisted of twelve members, nine of whom are preparing to teach.
Normal training was introduced during the past year with a class
consisting of eleven young ladies, including nine seniors.

In point of building and equipment
the school stands above the average.

There is, besides two buildings,
standing outside the corporate limits, a main building containing
seven class rooms, an assembly room, a physical and chemical
laboratory and a library. This building is of brick with stone to
first floor and was erected in 1896, after the old building had been
destroyed by fire. It is steam heated, well ventilated and
appropriately furnished.

The high school library is furnished
with sectional cases and consists of about 1,000 volumes, most of
which have been procured during the past four years. It is classified
according to the Dewey decimal system and furnished with complete
card catalog and charging system.

While the present building is
satisfactory it is now taxed to its capacity, and at the last annual
meeting the board was authorized to secure a block of ground
adjoining the present site at an approximate cost of $3,000, as a
site for a new high school building, which the district hopes to
erect in the near future; the grounds meanwhile to be used as an
athletic field and children's playground.

The school maintains a literary
society and an athletic club; the former gives bi-weekly programs.
Both organizations are largely under faculty control and are
represented annually in N. E. N. Declamatory association and in the
N. E. N. Athletic league, Considerable interest is manifested in both
organizations.

While some opportunity is given for
industrial training in the subject of agriculture and while some
manual work is given regularly in the lower grades, the subject of
industrial education, as a whole, awaits future development, but the
generous support always given the school by the community leaves
little doubt that ample provision will be made for this phase of
education as soon as more room is available.

W. M.
FINEGAN.
Superintendent.

CITY SCHOOLS

673

HARVARD.

The growth of the Harvard schools in
the last five years as I have known them has been mainly in the high
school department. In 1905-6 we enrolled sixty-five, in 1909-10 we
enrolled eighty-one. This increase is due mainly to the fact that in
the meantime the twelfth grade work was added to the high school
course.

In the year 1909 the school census
was 586, the enrollment of the Harvard schools 491, and the average
daily attendance 393.

We have been able to enforce the
compulsory education law with very satisfactory results in the
schools of our city. It has been an aid and incentive which has in
several instances brought good results. In our five rural schools the
law has been much more difficult in enforcement, and has not always
furnished the desired results.

The free high school attendance law
has been very pleasing to us as a high school. Last year we had
sixteen in our high school as a result of this law's possibilities.
This is more by ten than we usually had before its passage.

We have five small school houses in
the country and one large central building in Harvard. Every room in
the district is well lighted, comfortable, neat and thoroughly
equipped. Our school board is generous and progressive, desiring that
we have and purchase everything needed for the betterment of the
school and the teaching facilities We have maps, globes, charts,
slate blackboards, reference texts, dictionaries and encyclopedias,
plentiful to the needed extent. We furnish the pupils with ink, pens,
penholders, pencils, tablets, drawing paper, crayola, water color
paints and text books without any charge whatever. In our central
building we use for heating and ventilating the Smead system.

Our school library numbers 669 of
carefully selected volumes.

Ever since the normal training high
school law went into effect Harvard high school has maintained a
normal training class. Many of the members of these classes are now
regular teachers of Clay county.

The Harvard high school is proud of
the following high school organizations: Boys' Debating society,
Girls' Literary society, Boys' Double Quartet, Girls' Glee club,
Boys' Athletic association, Harvard High School Orchestra and Harvard
School Band. All of these organizations aid wonderfully in
maintaining that excellent school spirit of which the Harvard
citizens are so proud.

R. V.
CLARK,
Superintendent.

HASTINGS.

The growth of the public schools of
Hastings during the past few years has been somewhat irregular as the
following summary will show. Since 1901-2 the high school has
increased more than 120 per cent, while there has been a slight
increase only in the grades. The free attendance high school law has,
no doubt, had much to do with

674

STATE SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT

the increased number of students in the secondary school. During
the year 1909-10 seventy-one non-resident students were enrolled in
the Hastings high school.

The census taken in June, 1909,
shows a total of 2,657 children between 5 and 21 years of age. The
enrollment for 1909-10 was 2,187 in all grades and the average daily
attendance was 1,715.

Industrial work has been carried on
by the Hastings schools for some years. Within the past two years the
plan has been somewhat modified and at present two teachers are
employed in domestic science and two in shop work. Both of these
departments are full with a considerable number on the waiting list.
In domestic science the registration for the year 1910-11 was almost
50 per cent larger than could be accommodated. In both shop and
domestic science the students spend one-fourth of their time in the
work and they receive credit equal in amount to that given in any
other study. In both subjects the work is made as practical as
possible. In the shop the boys work on articles of use for the school
or for themselves.

Two years ago a system of permanent
record cards was put into use through the schools. Two cards, one for
the high school student and one for the grade pupil, give the
complete school history of the child. By means of these cards very
much information of statistical value accumulates and is made
convenient for use. Retardation, relation of attendance and promotion
and intellectual progress as indicated by per cents are shown in
tabulated form and may be studied to advantage.

Some attempt has also been made to
give in tabulated form figures to show how the money of the district
is spent and what is received for it. The table showing "Consumption
of Fuel" gives the number of tons, total cost, cost per thousand
cubic feet, kind of heat and ventilation in each building. A
comparison of expenditures and results may easily be made from data
given and these comparisons are of great value in checking needless
expenditures for fuel. In one of our ward schools this year the
janitor used eighty-seven tons of coal as compared with fifty-eight
used last year. That this was a needless increase is shown by the
fact that in four other schools there was a decrease in the amount of
coal used and in only one was there a slight increase. Showing
Consumption of Fuel, 1909-1910.